


Dance

by Brighid



Category: Firefly
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Multi, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 23:28:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6928732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brighid/pseuds/Brighid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River likes the way they move to this new song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dance

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from. Found it on my hard drive. Not sure it's ever seen the light of day.

She sings to the baby inside her, feels him dreaming. Calls him Mal, and he stirs, and she knows he's there, knows him.

"You ain't right, but you'll do," he'd said, last thread of voice, last breath of air, letting them slip away. She's glad he's found his way back to them, found breath from her body as he gave his last breath for them.

In the village they think her strange, odd, a dreamy thing. Don't see what the Deputy sees in her, can't even begin to imagine what she does with the Doctor, or how sweetly the Doctor and the Deputy dance together. She likes it when they dance, the hitch of their rhythm. She closes her eyes, lets her body move to the measure they set a room away. The baby dances inside her, turns in her belly, feet keeping time against her pelvis, her ribs, long baby like his daddy; lean boy, like his uncle; wise boy, like the Captain.

Supper simmering she sways from the stone counter to the wood table, lays out on it, lets the boy inside do all the dancing there is to do, and she listens to their song, the taste of it rich and green as summer in her mouth, clear as the water she swims in, naked every morning.

When they are quiet she wanders in and lies down between them, sees the simple, clear squares of Jayne's sleepy thoughts, the coloured pinwheels of Simon's almost-dreams. Jayne kisses like the calf they kept, a year ago. Sloppy, wet, mammal and happy. The touch of Simon's lips on her spine is like butterfly wings, like the soft, puffy seeds that scatter in late summer.

They dance around her, Jayne's mouth warm and humming between her thighs even as she cradles back against Simon, him holding her safe and steady as the dance takes her, too. The baby moves, high kick and happiness, and two hands -- one big and rough, the other slim and fine -- curve over, meet each kick and twist. She feels her body tighten, push back into the rock that's been her world since before she allowed herself to remember, lets the tongue that lied now find her truth, his truth.

Softer, falling, sweaty in her shift and happy, she says, "Stew's burning," and Jayne yelps and runs out naked to catch the pot, but it's not, it's not burning.

She just likes the way he looks, naked and moving, knows Simon does too.

"It's not," he whispers, laughing, in her ear, and she leans back against him and smiles and sings inside herself to Malcolm.

Maybe this time, he'll get to be happy.

)0(


End file.
